


Chums, Toad & Otherwise

by saintsaint



Category: Half-Life
Genre: Black Mesa (Half-Life), Building up trust w alien animals and w weird theoretical physicists is the same, Chumtoads, M/M, Pre-Canon, Pre-Resonance Cascade
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-24
Updated: 2021-02-13
Packaged: 2021-03-16 05:48:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,882
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28951452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saintsaint/pseuds/saintsaint
Summary: The toad, thething,leaps straight up into the air — and in a burst of violet light, itexplodes.Barney flinches back — but in between blinks the thing’s gone, sparks and all, leaving behind only a patch of disturbed sand.For a moment, Barney’s little oasis is nearly silent. Black Mesa hums beside him and the wind tears through the desert. He stares at the spot the toad had just been, blinking away the pink and violet aftermath.“What,” Barney whispers, “in thegoddamned fuck.”
Relationships: Barney Calhoun & the Chumtoad, Barney Calhoun/Gordon Freeman
Comments: 32
Kudos: 107





	1. November

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ideally this fic would be around five chapters long, showing the gradual build-up of trust between barney and both the chumtoad and gordon (as well as how barney gets drawn into the black mesa friend group that ends up becoming part of the resistance in HL2). realistically, i struggle writing things that aren’t Mostly Shenanigans so i may end up skipping the middle bits and instead just give you the last chapter of the hypothetical fic that this would have been. i suppose we’ll see!
> 
> also i’m warning you now they probably ain’t even gonna kiss. but it is about fallin in love, AND if u ignore canon and the fact that the ResCas is comin for em then the ending will read as very hopeful :D
> 
> See end notes for content warnings.

“Calhoun,” Otis says, “I just do not understand you.”

Barney zips up his coat, checks he hasn’t misplaced his keys and ID, and offers a crooked smile to the man leaned up against the wall. “Shucks, Otis, there’s not that much to get. How am I troublin’ you today?”

“How do you think,” he says, and gestures one-handed to take in Barney’s coat, the three 5-gallon water jugs set beside him, and the rusty metal door letting cold air in around its poorly-sealed frame. “It’s cold as shit, Calhoun, and there’s no point in pouring water in a desert.”

Barney shrugs at that and wraps a hand around the handles of two of the jugs, flexing his fingers to make sure his grip is alright, before snagging the last jug with his free hand. He glances at Otis, who rolls his eyes but obediently opens the side door for him. Barney quickly hefts up the water containers and hobbles over the threshold and outside. It’s awkward as hell and not easy but Barney’s been doing it after every shift for months now; he's used to it. (Plus, there’s just no way he’d let himself take two trips when one will do just as well.)

“’Appreciate the help, even if it’s bunk to you,” Barney says as he sets the jugs down with a grunt. He can roll the extra from here. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Otis.”

“Not even gonna try to explain, eh?” Otis calls after him, and Barney raises a hand in a good-natured wave before picking up two of the jugs and shoving the spare with a boot. The other man mutters something after him as the door shuts with a whine and a clunk.

Otis is alright. He’s jovial and laughs easily and, on occasion, humors Barney his eccentricities. But there’s only so many baffled looks a guy can take before giving up explaining why he does what he does as a bad job — as much as he likes the man, it’d be better for now to just let Otis guess.

And so, alone, Barney sets off into the night.

His destination isn’t too far. Ten minutes walking and expertly kicking along the outside of Black Mesa brings him to an odd meeting of the walls, a corner inexpertly created. It’s shielded from the harsh desert winds and is in a constant sort of half-shadow, half-light during the day. Now, nearing eleven at night, it’s just barely lit with the ambient light given off by the research facility. Underneath the earth, Barney figures there must be a metal ceiling jutting out beyond the upper levels that prevents the water from leaching away so easily here.

Whatever the case, it’s very nearly a mini oasis: this particular collection of sand is greener and wetter than anywhere else round the facility and just far enough from any exit doors that no humans tend to disturb it. Not too far off there’s also another niche, neatly shielded from the winds and at the perfect angle for a person or two to hunker down and unobtrusively watch what happens in this one. It’s far and away the best thing Barney has found in New Mexico.

Barney snags the loose jug with his foot before it can roll too far ahead. The others he sets down and sets about uncapping. He can feel eyes on him as he dumps out the water into the muddy little area, can see some movement in the shadowy plants and sand as he finishes up, and he can’t help his eyes crinkling at the corners.

While Black Mesa likely wouldn’t notice if Barney stole three full water jugs from their reserves everyday, he’s not _trying_ to get fired — so he only steals one, and refills two empties in the bathrooms. He figures while that water might not exactly be human-safe to drink, it’s likely fine for desert animals that wouldn’t otherwise be getting water anyway. And besides, the animals’ growing familiarity with him, that gradually built trust, those are worth more to him than getting written up in this dumb job anyway.

Shaking out the last drops of his final jug, he collects the others and heads off to the secondary niche. He sets his load down and checks his watch, squinting against the blue light-up numbers; there’s plenty of time until the next tram and it’s not too cold out tonight, so with a sigh of relief he sinks down into the sandy little corner and settles in for the next little bit, his eyes on the homemade watering hole.

It’s not a bad night for it. The cold isn’t enough yet for the reptiles and amphibians to have hunkered down, so they’re the first ones out, slow-moving when they aren’t stock still in wait. The small mammals are next: mice and things, little warm-blooded creatures darting in and out of the sparse vegetation for their chance at water in the desert. Birds show up sometimes, too, all flashing eyes and silent wings that send the smaller creatures scurrying, and the larger creatures follow. Hares are common, kit foxes less so, coyotes rare. A bobcat had shown up once; Barney had held his breath the whole time, aware that the thing’s teeth and claws could do a lot of damage to him even if he'd had his bulletproof vest, but unable to tear his gaze away from the casual, stalking strength belied by its relatively innocuous shape.

Tonight is calmer. There are a few hares at the largest but most of the night’s visitors are small. Barney can’t see much detail at this distance with this light, but he can see the occasional movement of scaled bodies, the smooth arc of a slithering snake or the sedate hop of a toad. It’s relaxing, after an eleven hour shift walking Black Mesa’s hallways and nodding along to his coworkers’ unfunny jokes and kow-towing to the demands of every whitecoat he’s unfortunate enough to be noticed by. To just sit for a bit and _be…_ it’s nice _._

The night sky above is dark and wide, a thousand stars out even with Black Mesa’s lights. Barney’s fallen asleep underneath this open sky a few times before, waking sore and cramped, and though the cold isn’t yet enough to make his breath visible it really ought to be enough to deter him from taking a nap.

Still… he’s warm in his coat, and there are trams through the night so it’s not like he’d be stuck out here if he did close his eyes for a bit. The animals aren’t being particularly interesting this evening anyway, most sticking by the little oasis. Barney’s eyelids flutter shut, then open, shut then open again —

And then he jerks into full awareness because where seconds ago had been nothing is now something and — and that something is _wrong._

Logic says the creature before him is a toad, because the desert has plenty of toads, because nature adapts even if the arid climate isn’t where one would expect to find them. Logic says he closed his eyes for longer than he meant to. And logic says that one of the animals from the little oasis approaching him isn’t unusual, either, whether due to curiosity or naiveté or both. A toad hopping a bit closer shouldn’t be enough to spook him.

No, what has the hairs on the back of Barney’s neck suddenly standing up is the _size_ of the thing. It’s easily five times larger than any toad he’s seen since growing up in Alabama (and then some!), and he’d swear it’s got spikes on its back, but they seem to be _moving_ in a way spikes shouldn’t — and that color doesn’t seem right, either, much deeper than the pale, sand-colored things common to the desert. It’s shaped subtly wrong, too, with more of a four-legged gait than the squat-and-hop kinda silhouette it ought to have, and — well, it must be a trick of the dimness, and the weird pattern on its face, but… 

From this angle Barney’d almost swear its head was taken up by a single giant, peering eye.

He doesn’t dare to blink, gaze darting around the toad (?) to take in as much as he can even if probably he’s seeing things wrong. Probably it’s some animal with its young on its back with some color mutation just weird enough to make him think he’s seeing things. Probably it’ll turn in a second or move just so and its shape will resolve into something familiar, something that Barney knows and that won’t keep him up at night, wondering.

He’s just starting to force his shoulders to relax when the sudden _shriek_ rips through the air.

An owl lifts off from over by the watering hole, some small prey in its grasp. But Barney’d been holding himself so stiffly that when the noise reaches him he startles, twitching hard —

And the toad, the _thing,_ leaps straight up into the air — and in a burst of violet light, it _explodes._

Barney flinches back — but in between blinks the thing’s gone, sparks and all, leaving behind only a patch of disturbed sand.

For a moment, Barney’s little oasis is nearly silent. Black Mesa hums beside him and the wind tears through the desert. He stares at the spot the toad had just been, blinking away the pink and violet aftermath.

“What,” Barney whispers, “in the _goddamned fuck_.”

***

Barney’s been on the Yellow Shift for half a year now. He’d spent a year and change swapping between Red and Orange, patrolling low-clearance areas of Black Mesa like the dorms and cafeterias, which had been boring as hell and played havoc with his sleep schedule. The Yellow Shift is more interesting on account of being actually _inside_ the secret research facility and, since he’s not often asked to go Green, he’s been able to get some solid sleep during the night hours since the promotion.

That is, he _had_ been able to. Last night was an exception; he’d spent most of it wide awake, questioning and requestioning what he had seen. Really, he ought to be able to dismiss the messed up animal he half-saw in dim light while he was three-quarters to sleep, especially given that it seemed to disappear when he rubbed his eyes (apparent explosion notwithstanding).

But no matter how many times he reminds himself of the facts, the damn thing sticks with him. It was bad enough that he found himself getting out of bed around one in the morning, pawing through some of the conspiracy books he owns sort of as a joke as though they might contain the answers.

All this is to say that by halfway through the next day’s shift, he’s three vending machine coffees deep and is blinking rapidly against his own desire to just _sit_ for a minute. There’s no time, though; every science team member who catches sight of him has got some new task that needs doing, from fetching extra beakers to carting chemicals back and forth to changing a lightbulb (and ain’t that a joke). Not to mention the joke that is calling him a “security officer” when really it seems like he spends his whole day catering to the needs of tantrum-throwing eggheads.

He’s just finished hauling some sample all the way over to the east side and is wishing he’d used his lunch period to take a nap in one of the supply closets when he hears a wavery “Pardon me! Ah, could you possibly—?” Barney closes his eyes, steels himself, and manages to pull on a friendly smile by the time he turns around.

The man looks to be in his early fifties, balding and delicate and maybe even as short as Barney himself. He’s got his hands clasped together and behind his huge, clunky glasses he’s smiling more apologetically than any other whitecoat ever has when faced with a security guard they want something from. Barney doesn’t recognize him, but something about the man makes his own expression ease a little. “How can I help, doc?”

“Well, I feel so foolish,” the scientist says, tilting his head back the way he came, and Barney falls into step beside him. “But I was giving our newest ‘science team’ member a tour of the facilities and, although I could have _sworn_ I had my keys on me this time, I seem to have locked myself out of my own office! Now, normally I would have asked young Andrew to help me out, but I looked everywhere and just couldn’t seem to find him. And, well, then I saw you, and as I understand it all security guards have copies of a master key, so I hoped perhaps you might help? I’m so very sorry to pull you away from your patrol, but I would feel absolutely _terrible_ if I brought Gordon all this way just to be unable to show him the very research he’ll be working with.”

The man titters rather self-consciously. Barney nods along as the man continues his chitchat unhindered by Barney’s fatigued inability to come up with interesting responses. They travel down a few hallways like that, the doctor cheerfully waving a finger around in emphasis as he goes on about how helpful Andrew has been and how he’s so very embarrassed to have misplaced his keys yet again, honestly, he was _sure_ he had them this time, until the man comes to a sudden halt.

It takes a second for Barney to realize he’s lost his guide. He stumbles a bit in his haste to turn around and hide his error, but the man’s looking back the way they came, naked confusion on his face. “I — I beg your pardon, we walked right by the place. So sorry, I was expecting Gordon to still be here, but naturally he’s wandered away — ah well — it’s right here, if you wouldn’t mind…”

“‘Course,” Barney says, fishing his key ring out of his pocket. He’s blinking blearily, trying not to lose count of which keys he’s already passed, when from above echoes a heavy _CLANG._

Barney jumps. “Goodness,” the scientist beside him comments mildly. Together they look to the ceiling, where nothing appears to be out of the ordinary.

“...Well,” the doctor starts, when another loud _CLANG_ echoes from above. It’s a little farther away this time; in fact, if Barney were less tired, he might even say it was coming from above and _within_ the locked office he’s standing before. The _CLANG_ comes again, followed by a low, groaning _creeeak_ and, from lower down, a heavy _thump._

“What in—” Barney starts, when without warning the door he’s standing before is thrown open, revealing a tall, square-shouldered figure with enormous, flashing eyes.

The thing looks down at Barney, expression unreadable, its hands raised in menace and Barney barely chokes out a “ _Son_ of a—,” quaking hand reaching for the firearm all security guards are required to carry and never expected to use, but of course something like this would happen at Black fucking Mesa —

“Ah, Gordon!” the scientist beside Barney says, calm and delighted. “There you are! How on earth did you get in?”

The figure before them resolves into a human being, one wearing thick, square glasses that reflect the fluorescent light from the hallway. Barney catches his breath, heart thudding painfully in his chest. It’s a man — just a man.

A man in a pristine white labcoat, at that — this must be the new science team member. He’s fairly young-looking for it, probably not more than thirty, with a goatee and enough chestnut brown hair to pull back into a ponytail. He stands tall and stiff, the light still reflecting off his glasses and his expression unreadable.

Then he points his thumb over his shoulder. The older, friendly scientist leans in, placing a hand on Barney’s shoulder for balance. “Ah, the vents! Brilliant as always, Gordon.”

The _vents?_ Barney leans in as well, tilting his head up to see that the cover to the office’s air duct has been removed. Did the man climb in through the _vents??_ Barney has a sudden, intense vision of this mysterious man descending from above, hands out-stretched like owls’ talons aimed at its prey.

“But really, you ought to have waited!” the friendly scientist scolds his coworker as he pats Barney’s shoulder. “I brought young, ah, young… Oh my.” The older man turns to Barney now, face creased in yet another apologetic smile. “I was so eager to get that blasted door open that I quite forgot introductions; my apologies. My name is Dr. Isaac Kleiner.”

“Barney Calhoun,” Barney says, shaking the extended hand and wondering if perhaps he _did_ take that nap during lunch and is still dreaming; a whitecoat treating anyone from the security team like a person is even less likely than strange men leaping down from vents in locked rooms. “It’s no problem, Dr. Kleiner.”

Kleiner’s smile broadens. “Well, I appreciate it all the same, Barney. Oh — and of course, this is my colleague… as of today,” he says, pride clear in his eyes as he pats the tall, rigid man on the back. “Gordon Freeman.”

“Hey, Doctor Freeman. Good to meet you,” Barney says on auto-pilot and thoughtlessly extends his hand to the strange scientist.

The man doesn’t say a word. He tilts his head down to look at Barney’s hand and at last the light reflecting off his glasses clears, revealing striking green eyes. He really does look young, with a smattering of freckles across his cheekbones and thick, dark eyebrows. He might even be good-looking if it weren’t for the intense expression of almost primal scrutiny on his face as he looks Barney up and down, like he’s looking for weaknesses.

Barney thinks of that bobcat he’d once seen at the watering hole, all powerful muscle and tense stillness before it pounced, and fights down a shiver.

At last Freeman reaches out and clasps Barney’s hand. He gives it a firm squeeze, his palm cool to the touch, and then drops it without saying a word. He has the decency to nod at least as he retreats back into the office to apparently set about reattaching the vent cover to the ceiling.

Kleiner beams at Barney as though that was high praise. “Well! It was wonderful to meet you, Barney. We’ll look forward to seeing you around the facility. Give my regards to Andrew if you find him!” And with that, Kleiner unceremoniously closes the door in Barney’s face.

Barney stares for a long moment at the office door, trying to understand the past few minutes and failing. He doesn’t feel tired anymore, at least, his heart still pounding in his chest as he processes the fact that he nearly shot at an innocent man today.

Well — an innocent man, yes, but a rather terrifying one who apparently thinks nothing of climbing through the walls and ceilings of his workplace, dropping down into locked rooms as it suits him.

At least Barney’s not thinking of that freaky toad thing anymore, but still: as he turns away to drag his feet down the hallway and back to his patrol on the other side of the facility, he can’t help muttering to himself.

“What in the _goddamned fuck._ ”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNINGS: bit of loneliness; character thinks they're seeing things; character loses sleep over what they think they may have seen incorrectly; character nearly draws a gun on a person he thinks might be inhuman.
> 
> 1\. if i could have come up with a stupider name for this fic i swear i would have  
> 2\. gordon, an already awkward person put in an extremely awkward situation: “o shit this guard’s cute but i’ve already been very weird in front of him. omg, he wants to touch hands?? ok i am being so normal. i am nailing this” // barney: “WHAT the FUCK this dude is so scary D:”  
> 3\. i came from [HLVRAI](https://youtu.be/vDUYLDtC5Qw?t=888), as did many recent HL fans -> then the [Barnrey comic](https://barnrey.tumblr.com/) by [alieryn-art](https://alieryn-art.tumblr.com/) (identity issues + reckoning w two people being one person!) -> who the heck is barney calhoun anyway? better read [the wiki](https://combineoverwiki.net/wiki/Barney_Calhoun) -> hm maybe i’ll check out the [Blue Shift playthrough](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KupyXA6D5y4&list=PLRGq7VbV917SJXiAwc7xoofGXOpdqVx4o) by [bugs&frankie](https://www.twitch.tv/facefullabugs) (fun folks who’ve already done the deep dive on HL and are cool n nice tour guides about it) -> [various chumtoad art](https://cartoonsaint.tumblr.com/tagged/chum/chrono) downloaded directly into my brainstem -> Oh, That’s How I Got Here. this story was informed by the above sources, all of which i heartily recommend :)  
> 4\. i just wanted to write a short thing about befriending a chumtoad, but then i wrote the first line (~“calhoun i just don’t understand you”) and realized i’d signed myself up for a proper character study to try to remedy that. sigh. barney’s lucky he’s so lovable or i woulda g-man’d this fic right then and there.  
> 5\. this story has some fun writing challenges for me; hopefully it’ll help me grow as a writer? in any case, i’m very interested in exploring a sarcastic swear-y caring alcoholic double agent romantic interest (tbh) who hates headcrabs and was once a young man who liked chumtoads enough to keep one secret in his locker... and also how he became friends with a to-be-traumatized and decidedly Weird theoretical physicist. thanks for comin along for the ride, see you whenever i get the next chap sorted <3
> 
> i hope this story finds you well. til next time!


	2. December

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> PREVIOUSLY: Barney met a strange purple toad that teleported away in a bright flash. Then he met a strange tall scientist that climbed through the vents to get into a locked office.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this got a bit more attention that i was expecting hlblhlblh?? still no promises on whether it’ll reach fully-fledged fic status BUT i get what it’s like to be hungry for content and also quite invested in mister barney calhoun, so have another chapter :] hope you enjoy!  
> See end notes for content warnings.

In the month it takes for the book to arrive, Barney just about manages to forget the whole thing. There’s no sign of the toad-creature at the watering hole and the nights are getting colder, too cold to stay out unless you’re some kinda nut. That and the long days walking Black Mesa corridors dealing with the everyday incompetence of the science team serves as a pretty convincing point in Barney’s suspicion that while he might not be a total nut, he’s definitely a fool.

Which is why, when he checks his P.O. box and finds in it a slim package with an out-of-state return address, he swears at himself under his breath. There’s not enough time to drop it off at his dorm and get to the tram on time and he’s already been late twice this week. But the post office won’t be open by the time he gets off, either, so with a grunt of annoyance at himself Barney brings the package with him.

Tucking it under his arm gets him past check-in and to his locker, where some of the guys pull him into a conversation about last weekend at the Only Bar and he’s stuck going through the necessary motions of coworker camaraderie. They're not distracted enough for him to get the package into his locker without questions so Barney’s stuck cinching his vest on over it. It jostles against him all day, through a lunch where Otis regales him with complaints about scheduling and a break where he doesn’t do too bad in a few quick hands of poker. It takes til that evening when he’s finished dumping out the third jug of water into his little watering hole for him to have the time to actually pull the thing out and tear open the packaging.

_ Black Mesa, White Lies,  _ the book’s cover announces in the bright light of his flashlight. It promises to reveal “the occult secrets at the heart of the world’s most secretive research facility” and Barney ordered it because he thought — well, because he works here, for one thing, though that just means he knows the place is boring. The most interesting thing he’s seen inside the building is that young scientist who apparently had no issues climbing through vents and dropping into locked offices.

But he bought the book because he just couldn’t get that damn toad-looking thing out of his head. And conspiracy theory books are mostly bullshit, but they’re fun to read, and they make him think about things he otherwise wouldn’t, and, and —

And he’s a dumbass who thought for a moment that maybe,  _ maybe,  _ he’d seen an alien at the most boring job in the world.

Barney huffs a quiet laugh at himself and tucks the book under his arm, heading to his watching niche. It’s cold but not miserable out and he’s both tired of hiding the book on him all day and uninterested in having to answer the questions of coworkers who might see him with it on the second tram back to the dorms. He’ll wait a bit, read a few chapters, catch an emptier tram later in the night. He settles his back against the corner and flicks his flashlight on once more.

The book turns out to  _ really _ not be what Barney was hoping for. It’s got a lot to say about Ancient Babylon, old gods, and mysterious portals to other dimensions, but just about nothing on big freaky purple toads. Still, he gets past the introduction and through a chapter and a half before his attention strays back to the watering hole.

A long-legged hare has drifted closer from the little oasis, pausing about halfway between Barney and the rest of the browsing animals. The circle of light created by his flashlight extends past himself and the book, illuminating the wide, wary eye turned on him, but the animal doesn’t flee. A smile pulls on his lips unbidden as he watches the hare watching him back, rooting carefully at the sparse desert grass. It's a prey animal, sure, but its lean, awkward frame hides powerful muscles that could take it anywhere it wanted before Barney could even get up off the ground. It’s sure and calm in its own abilities.

One of those long ears swivels and at once it’s off and away, gone bounding into the darkness and out of sight. Barney figures that’s as good a cue as any and starts rooting around in his pockets for a scrap to use as a bookmark when —

_ CRK-fzzzt! _

Barney twitches  _ hard.  _ The pages of his book fall shut and he loses his place — but he hardly notices because right there where the hare had been is a brief flash, small but brilliant, of pink and purple sparking energy. He fumbles for his flashlight, blinking stars out of his eyes, and swings its beam over to illuminate, unbelievably, the very same creature whose existence has been haunting Barney this whole past month.

In the bright light it’s obvious that he was right: it’s a toad, basically, but it doesn’t look like anything Barney’s ever seen on Earth before. He has just enough time to register that yes, the majority of its head really is taken up by a single huge, glistening eye the color of blood on sand. Its slit-like black pupil shrinks in the face of the heavy-duty flashlight’s beam.

Then it crouches tightly down and leaps  _ right at him. _

It falls short, about a stone’s throw away, and Barney springs to his feet and lets loose a string of words his mother would have smacked him for. He reaches for his firearm — but it’s in his locker, along with anything else that might help him. All he’s got is his flashlight and a hard-backed book of questionably researched conspiracy theories. A bit hysterically, he wonders if he’s going to have to beat the alien-thing to death with the very book he bought to try to understand it.

The toad hops again, landing just a few feet away — Barney tenses, his grip on both book and flashlight tightening — and then it just… sits there.

Something rustles by the watering hole. In the distance, a coyote yips. Barney’s heart thuds wildly in his chest. 

The toad-like creature crouches there within grabbing distance, defying a month’s worth of Barney telling himself to be reasonable. Now he can get a better look at it, he sees that he was right all along: its skin alternates tiger stripes of violet and magenta, a ridge of spikes swivel oddly along its spine, and its overall silhouette is definitely more four-legged than froggish. Rather than webbed toes, it sports some kind of hard claw or nail that reminds him of pig feet. It’s bigger than a football but, absurdly, Barney bets he could fit it neatly under his arm if he were to pick it up. 

The thing peers up at him in return, blinking its huge, red eye slowly and calmly. Barney hesitates, lowering his would-be weapons.

Then it opens its mouth and a very long and very,  _ very  _ blue tongue whips out, snags the flashlight in Barney’s hand — “ _ shit, _ ” he yelps, releasing it immediately — and pulls it back to itself with such force that the animal goes bowling over onto its back.

Its limbs flail wildly. The flashlight, still held in its wide mouth, produces a strobe-like effect due to the creature’s struggling. It ribbits in displeasure, just about exactly like any other toad might.

Barney gapes.

Then, with yet another  _ crk-FZZZT  _ and flash of purple light that has him flinching, it vanishes, taking the flashlight with it.

“What,” Barney says into the darkness. Then, more loudly, enough that it echoes against the building beside him and spooks any remaining animals at the watering hole: “What!”

He saw it. It was right there,  _ right there,  _ he got such a good look at it and now it’s gone, teleported away or something. How? What kind of thing can just  _ do  _ that? Why approach Barney? It didn’t look too smart, all things considered, and catapulting a heavy-duty flashlight at its own face sure didn’t help matters. Where did it come from, and what was it trying to do?

And did it seriously just steal his flashlight?

Barney’s breath catches in his throat for a moment before it escapes as a guffaw. He claps a hand to his thigh, hunching over in disbelieving laughter because — it really did just steal his flashlight, didn’t it? That’s Black Mesa property. An actual, honest-to-God probable alien stole property from the world’s most secretive research facility.

He wheezes, smacking his thigh again. He’d bet the writer of his useless book would kill to know what he’s just seen. Meanwhile, Barney’s mostly worried about how he’s going to explain this to his supervisor when he has to put in a request for new equipment.

Not that he’s actually telling them the specifics, of course. He straightens up, rubbing at his jaw in amazement and a little ruefulness. He knows, without needing more than a moment to think about it, that there’s no one he  _ could  _ tell. While his coworkers are decent folks who he might trust to have his back on the job, none of them really  _ know  _ him. Hell, even trying to talk about his upkeep of the little watering hole has gotten him weird looks in the past — if he came to them blathering about aliens and conspiracy theories he’d be worse than a laughingstock. Who’s he gonna tell, the friends he lost contact with a few years back? And it’s not like he’s got much in the way of family, either, having been passed around from distant relative to distant relative after his parents died when he was just a kid.

His laugh fades out til it’s just him and the desert together in silence. Looking out into the night, he doesn’t even see any other animals out there. He might as well be completely alone.

Barney huffs another quiet laugh at himself, at the situation, at this weird secret he’s got no clue what to do with.

At last, he tucks the book under an arm and picks up the empty water jugs. He sincerely doubts there’s anything more for him at the watering hole tonight and if he’s going to have a big old freakout then he’d rather do it someplace warm.

Beside the shuffle of his boots on sand, the walk back is quiet. There’s enough light coming from the stars and the research facility itself that he’s not walking completely blind. He’s just reached the door and is thinking a touch sourly that at least the thing didn’t steal his keys too when the door swings open, narrowly missing his nose, and a figure exits at speed.

Barney’s caught too off-guard to step to the side. “Jesus fucking Christ,” he almost says, but he catches sight of the other person’s white labcoat as the figure collides with him _hard_ and swallows down the swear just in time. Barney loses his grip on his book and water jugs, sending them tumbling to the desert floor alongside the medium-sized box the other guy was holding. 

“Gh,” the other person says as their momentum keeps them moving forward; Barney grabs their shoulders to steady them but they twist in his arms, reaching for the falling box, and beneath the white coat they’re apparently solid as a stone wall because Barney goes bouncing off them to the ground himself.

The air goes out of him with an “oof!” and he sits there on his ass in the sand for a moment. The light spilling from the open door makes visible the sensible non-slip shoes the scientist’s wearing; his brain catches on them, shoving away all other thoughts. What on earth is a whitecoat doing out here at this time of night? They all should have gone home hours ago.

“Ss,” he hears from above him, and glances up in time to catch sight of a fist pressed to his assailant’s chest and moving in a circle: an apology. Barney automatically flicks two fingers and a thumb out in a dismissive motion — he’s fine, just startled — before he even realizes that that’s sign they’re using. He blinks and looks all the way up, meeting the eyes of his accidental attacker.

Even in the half-light they’re startling green, set under slightly raised thick eyebrows in a freckled face, and Barney realizes with a jolt that he’s met this man before. “Doctor Freeman?” he blurts, then winces. He’s very out of practice with sign and isn’t even sure how to say “doctor,” but he brings both hands up to try anyway (or at least apologize) when Freeman’s eyebrows raise further and he signs a few things rapid-fire.

“I’ve got,” he signs, stops. “You speak,” he starts, then stops again. “I didn’t mean to. You. I.” His hands falter, twitching in midair. Finally, he says, “Do you know this word?” And mimes shooting a gun.

“Uh,” Barney says, abruptly nervous. “Gun?”

Freeman nods, expression brightening minutely. Then he peers closer at Barney, head tilted, face once more unreadable. “You are Barney Calhoun?” He fingerspells all of Barney’s name as Barney gapes up at him.

“I,” Barney says, lifting his own hands uncertainly because he’s got about a hundred questions brought up by “gun” before mentally giving up and just tilting a fist down instead. “Uh, yeah.”

Freeman nods. They look at each other for a long moment, Freeman staring down a Barney who’s still on the ground and rapidly feeling less comfortable with that fact. At last, totally blanking on what he could possibly say in this situation, Barney coughs awkwardly into a fist and makes to stand up.

Freeman just about leaps into action. This is so startling that Barney nearly loses his balance again — but the man just reaches down to grab Barney’s upper arm and help haul him up. With sudden clarity, Barney recalls that Freeman’s palm had been cool when they shook hands when they first met; now, standing so close and having  _ not _ been outside for the past hour, the man’s body heat nearly soaks through Barney’s jacket, down to his skin.

Barney shivers, nerves abruptly returned, and steps away with a throat clear that he immediately feels stupid for because the man’s obviously deaf. He lifts his hands again as though he has any idea how to express “I’m uncomfortable and searching for some way to politely defuse the awkwardness of this situation” in ASL when Freeman interrupts him.

“I have hearing aids,” he points out. Pulled by its own weight, the door shuts with a muffled  _ click. _ “You can just talk.”

“Oh,” Barney says, relieved and then immediately guilty about feeling relieved. “Alright, I — uh. Sorry about, uh, runnin’ into you there.”

“It’s fine,” Freeman says, his gestures easy and fluid. “My fault — didn’t expect anyone to be out here.”

“Yeah,” Barney agrees. “You sure surprised me. Most of the science team is home by this hour — what, uh, what’s keeping you at work, Doctor Freeman?”

“Work,” the man says simply, and Barney almost pulls on his own work smile, nods, wishes him a good night and leaves him right there in the cold desert outside Black Mesa without any keys to get back in — but there’s a slight tilt to Freeman’s lips, a twitch of the eyebrows, and it suddenly strikes Barney that the man might be trying to joke around a bit. He’s the youngest of any of the scientists Barney’s seen; maybe he’s looking for a little companionship from someone closer to his own age, and Barney’s just happened to fit the bill.

So Barney, curious despite himself (and, perhaps, a little flattered that Freeman might pick  _ him _ of all people), asks, “Yeah? Lotta science to be done in the desert near midnight?”

“No, no,” Freeman says, “I was just—” His eyes widen behind his square glasses and he drops his gaze to the desert floor. “Oh! My — and your—”

He bends in half and Barney realizes the empty water jugs and book are still abandoned in the sand, alongside Freeman’s box. He jumps to help; together they collect everything, awkwardly exchanging the book and box with each other as Barney tries to hold all the water containers at once.

Barney can feel the burn of embarrassment in his cheeks when Freeman raises his eyebrows at the sight of the book’s cover. “ _ Black Mesa, White Lies _ ?” he asks (or at least that’s what Barney assumes from context clues and familiarity with the signs for colors). “I didn’t know our secrets were interesting enough to fill a whole book.”

“I’m not sure they are,” Barney admits, withholding his knee-jerk defensiveness for now and watching Freeman’s face. “I haven’t read much yet, but the author’s already talkin’ a lot more about ancient myths than anything close to the pencil-pushing you scientists seem to do all day.”

There: that’s definitely a smile, if a small one. Barney feels absurdly victorious and jerks his chin at the box Freeman holds carefully close to his chest. “Speaking of secrets, care to share what you've got in the box?”

At once, Freeman goes still. His eye sharpens, suddenly wary and wide, and his body tenses. Barney notices abruptly that under the labcoat and dorky science attire — which surely isn’t enough coverage for this weather, what was the man thinking? — Freeman’s lean but muscled. For a moment it feels like the man might turn labcoat tail and flee, out into the desert and away from the threat Barney seems to suddenly be.

But years of practice gaining the trust of skittish animals kick in and Barney stays loose and calm, offering the man a smile even as a part of his brain frantically, suspiciously points at the book in his own hand as though Freeman could be carrying the key to some dimension-destroying occult nonsense in his cardboard box.

It takes a long moment but, by degrees, the scientist relaxes. At last he shuffles forward with the command “Look,” pulling open one of the flaps just enough for the light from the building to show what’s inside.

It’s a small lizard about the length of one of Barney’s fingers, curled up tight. It has spots and stripes along its body and a bright blue tail. It blinks blearily in the light.

“A lizard,” Barney says stupidly.

Freeman nods. “It was in the office. If it stays inside the rats will get it.”

“Oh,” Barney says, feeling somehow stupider by the second as he watches Freeman’s face rather than the contents of the box. The man’s eyes are soft behind his glasses as he looks down at the little creature. Something inside Barney feels weirdly tight. “You caught it so you could let it go?”

“There should be—” a word Barney doesn’t recognize, but Freeman spells it out for him automatically — “b-u-r-r-o-w-s all along the building, where it’s warmest. Hold on.”

He turns away then, eyes down, and Barney watches him as he walks along Black Mesa’s edge, searching for a burrow to put a tired little lizard in so that it will be warm and safe. A ways away he finally kneels down. In the darkness Barney can’t quite see; he takes the moment to pull out his keys and unlock the door back in. By the time he’s done, Freeman has stood back up and returned with the empty box tucked under his arm.

He offers a small smile to Barney, barely a twitch of the lips. “Thanks for getting the door.”

“Sure,” Barney says automatically. Then, because that labcoat really would not have been warm enough for more than a few minutes outside, “You, uh, you know you can’t get back in this way without keys, right?”

Freeman pauses, blinking as Barney closes the door behind them. “I didn’t know that.” He frowns and a tiny wrinkle forms between his heavy eyebrows; Barney finds himself looking away, keeping his eyes on the man’s hands instead. “I guess I would have had to break back in.”

That startles a laugh out of Barney. So the man is funny, is he? “Yeah? I’m not sure you should be saying that to a security guard, sir.”

Freeman shrugs. “Make your doors less difficult to break into, then.”

Barney snorts and falls into step with the scientist as they head down the corridor and back into Black Mesa proper. “First the vents, now this. You make a habit of breaking the rules, Doctor Freeman?”

“Only the ones that get in my way,” he replies.

They come to a fork in the hall; Barney’s headed for the tram, but it looks like Freeman might be staying later into the night. “Well, try to keep any more rule-breaking animal rescues to a minimum tonight, Doctor Freeman. Not every security guard would be so lenient.”

“Thanks for keeping my secret. Hope you don’t read the chapter in your book on our lizard experiments any time soon,” Freeman says, deadpan, and Barney’s so surprised he laughs hard enough to smack his own leg.

“Alright, Doctor Freeman. Have a good night,” he says, still chuckling as he prepares to head off.

“You too,” Freeman says. “Thanks for not almost pulling a gun on me this time, Mister Calhoun.”

Barney freezes, embarrassment flooding his system, but he catches the corner of a smile on Freeman’s face before the man turns and walks off down the hall, back straight and hands in the pockets of his labcoat.

“What,” Barney whispers to himself, alone in the hallway as a grin spreads across his face. “What!”

It takes until Barney’s on the tram and halfway back to the dorms before he’s able to stop thinking of his strange, interesting interaction with Doctor Freeman for long enough to remember that he may have seen a goddamn alien tonight, too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNINGS: loneliness; consideration of violence between human and animal (not followed through on); parent death mention; mention of animals killing other animals; lil bit of pushin down gay shit.
> 
> 1\. i’m not deaf. i’ve been researchin and am trying to avoid being a totally ignorant dickweed but if i misstep or if you have any resources you’d particularly rec about writing a deaf character, please send me a message? :]  
> 2\. gordon was totally serious about breaking in; barney just doesn’t know him well enough to quite discern jokes from freeman-typical rule breaking. also gordon’s thought process is totally logical he’s just Weird (like me!!): cute guy again! i should make a joke a la ~we keep bumping into each other~ but personalized to our first meeting to show i recognize him. wait, would he know the sign i’d need for the joke? better check — wait, is this a weird time to make that joke? hm i’ll save it for later. o fuck wait am i being weird rn. o FUCK WAIT my LIZARD  
> 3\. here are some (G- or T-rated, but mind the tags!) fics that got me thinkin about how i might construct barney: [Black Coffee by rednightmare](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18530098), [Quantum Suicide (9 to 5) by yellow_caballero](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25903576/chapters/62951194), and [Care and Feeding of Stray Physicists by ArdeaWrites](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25620697/chapters/62190607). i’m always interested in characters who are in long-term high-pressure situations (particularly when we only have tidbits of their history!) and it’s very cool to see how different people paint in the blanks :]  
> 4\. the “Black Mesa White Lies” book is canon! a copy can be found in HL:A in that one bunker that is almost certainly barney’s; [HERE](https://youtu.be/GW8K6quTva8?t=15009)’s a playthrough of that area (and [HERE](https://youtu.be/GW8K6quTva8?t=15365)’s where they find the book if you want the Could-Be-Barney Content Now Please Valve I’m Dying)  
> 5\. was definitely thinking more of the combine uniform than the security guard one when i wrote barney carrying the book around all day. my b.  
> 6\. to make sure this actually got written i had to sacrifice accuracy about new mexico climate, whiptail lizards, and probable chumtoad abilities. probably i will make this type of faustian bargain again. sorry if u know things <3
> 
> i hope this story finds you well. til next time!


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